Traffic police accused of using satnav speeding ‘deception’

Officers mark positions on Waze app to imply they are stationed by roadside rather than driving past

TRAFFIC police keen to deter speeding motorists are marking patrol car positions on a satnav app to imply they are stationed by the roadside rather than just driving past.

Surrey Police has been accused of misleading drivers after its traffic patrols admitted reporting their locations on Waze even when their vehicles were in motion.

The traffic app allows users to report driving conditions such as traffic jams, accidents and police sightings, helping other motorists take alternative routes or avoid being caught speeding.

While police locations are generally reported for stationary officers, such as those operating speed traps, Surrey’s roads policing teams have now admitted on Twitter that they use the function while driving.

The force claimed the tactic “works perfectly” by encouraging drivers to slow down. However, motorists have been left fuming at the “deception”.

A tweet from Surrey Road Cops said: “We definitely don’t drop police markers on Waze at random points on our patrol, nope – never.” It featured a winking emoji to indicate the opposite is true, before adding: “An easy way to get drivers to slow down on our roads – thanks Waze.”

This led to several angry comments, accusing the force of “creating phantom units”, “putting false information” on the app, “lying” and altering computer records “to deceive other users”.

The police Twitter account stated that its location alerts are “technically not false” as officers “are there at that very specific point in time”.

It added: “Nowhere on Waze does it say the patrol has to be stationary.”

Responding to a motorist who claimed that they “never see” traffic officers despite driving “thousands of miles over the past few months”, Surrey Road Cops replied: “We’re not responsible for the significant cuts to policing budgets over the years that decimated traffic units across the country.”

Rejecting a claim the tactic detracted from the police’s job of catching criminals, Surrey’s roads policing team said: “Our teams are focused on road-related offending. There are other teams who are equally as focused on burglaries, robbers, thieves and drug dealers.”

Edmund King, the president of the AA, said the “real issue” with Surrey Police’s use of Waze was “the huge reduction in cops in cars”.

Home Office figures show the number of full-time equivalent roads policing officers in England and Wales has fallen by 22 per cent, from 5,237 in March 2015 to 4,102 in March 2022.